Actually if there's a boxing ring in the gym, they have to do SOME sparring. Right?

Yeah, like I say if you pay for personal boxing training (which quite a lot of people seem to do - lots of rich City types) the instructors will spar with you. But that's far out of my league right now.

Thanks for the suggestions, comments etc. I think i'll carry on with it for the moment and when I feel like I've learned something about technique will look into organising a sparring class or going somewhere else, make my world title bid etc. I can use it to an extent in my Krav class as I said, but it will be a bit different from pure boxing sparring.

Da Komrads! There is somethink to be said about this boxing without sparring...

I just Kan't think of Enklish translation? Oh well.

.
:icon_twis .
To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence;
Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without spilling your Guinness.Sun "Fu Man JhooJits" Tzu, the Art of War & Guinness

Rad ki was made up by adolescents. I do not know who created trad ki but it was not made by adolescents. your an ass dude, Im not being a little bitch you are, your past the level of a bitch. Your beyond Bitch! If im easting my time with ki and psi, then your wasting time to prove frauds, and all **** like that! -theoutsider

Kick boxing is ok, but don't expect do beat a man like Rickson Gracie with that. You need a real martial art. You need Xing Yi Quan. -Emptyflower

The splits, how ever, have a few martial uses. Doing the splits for me, can put my fists in testical strike range.

dont ignore the Art for the Martial or else your just kick boxing

Yes i am serious, there are kicks that can block punches. we have them in Moo duk kwan.
I want to learn how to use them in case my arm gets broken in a fight.
what would you have me do? if my arm gets broke, not block punches? -sempi-stone

Yeah, kinda the message I was going for. It's subtle. I was trying to use it to be funny but also having a double meaning of being ironic thus people would understand it's not cool anymore. But bonus points for picking it up feedback, good job!

Rad ki was made up by adolescents. I do not know who created trad ki but it was not made by adolescents. your an ass dude, Im not being a little bitch you are, your past the level of a bitch. Your beyond Bitch! If im easting my time with ki and psi, then your wasting time to prove frauds, and all **** like that! -theoutsider

Kick boxing is ok, but don't expect do beat a man like Rickson Gracie with that. You need a real martial art. You need Xing Yi Quan. -Emptyflower

The splits, how ever, have a few martial uses. Doing the splits for me, can put my fists in testical strike range.

dont ignore the Art for the Martial or else your just kick boxing

Yes i am serious, there are kicks that can block punches. we have them in Moo duk kwan.
I want to learn how to use them in case my arm gets broken in a fight.
what would you have me do? if my arm gets broke, not block punches? -sempi-stone

Update on this: I went to my second class last night, and after the warmup and some footwork drills, the instructor split the class up by experience. The beginners partnered up to do some combos on focus mitts while the more experienced people got sent to do something else. I presumed it was bag work or skipping or something but I glanced over at them at one point and they were battering the **** out of each other. Maybe 50%-70% contact at a guess; I didn't get to watch them for long. So it would seem these classes do have sparring, making this thread a bit moot, sorry, but good news. I guess the gym sales guy claimed it didn't (I got told it was just about technique, while he told my wife it was "just an exercise class") to avoid scaring people away. Or perhaps he just didn't know.

Last night was very enjoyable, but mainly because I got paired up with this cool girl who really knew her stuff (she should have been with the experienced people by rights, but had been out of training for a couple of months so went with the beginners to ease herself back in). However there are too many people in the class IMO and it means you get little attention from the instructor; if I hadn't have been with her I wouldn't have learned 10% as much as I did. Also it bothers me that they sent us to hit the heavy bag on the first lesson without giving us any advice about wearing wraps (I wasn't wearing any; noone checked, and they didn't give us any supervision; now my hands hurt, probably more from bad technique than a lack of wraps as I don't hit that hard) and some other similar stuff. How concerned should I be about this kind of thing?